Hey so my roomate Brooks (valhallaatyoulater.blogspot.com) started writing a blog because he's an English major and he's going on a journey of self-discovery for a 100 straight days of blogging. So I decided that I would go along with him. So these are my musings! yaya que pasas bien!!!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Power

Buenas everyoneCrazy things are happening, I can't even explain it to you. Portuguese, Brazil, paintings, work, class, travel, michael dell, Austin, Bryan, Spanish, Houston, San Antonio, Fredricksburg, Ex-state representatives, San Angelo, Kermit, Denver City, Oplin, TV, reading, music, caffeine, love, dreams, and schemes have all been in my life lately. I could probably write about 40 blog posts about my life the last few weeks but that is the condensed version. I've been moving around a lot lately and it feels good. It was brought to my attention that i have been ignoring my blog since the last time it snowed...regrettable, seeing as I am now wearing shorts. So here is a blog.In my sophomore year at ACU my roommate Jordan and I had two posters side by side on the wall when you walked into our dorm room. One poster was of Gandhi, and the other of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Many people would come in and laugh, rightly so, because at first glance it would seem that these two men would be completely opposite in their ideologies. Gandhi, who taught non-violence and Che who killed thousands of people; how could we let them share wall space? Our joking answer was that they were like the good and bad angels that you see on the old cartoons one on the right shoulder and one on the left, however in reality we saw them as two men who were very alike. Che and Gandhi were both revolutionary figures who wanted to change the reality that was around them into something better. They took two completely different stances on violence, Gandhi wrote on satyagraha and ahimsa attempting to show that through training and diligence one could learn to overcome their passions and actively work to change a system while at the same time avoiding violent nature; El Che, on the other hand, was famous for preferring confrontation to compromise, and literally wrote the book on guerrilla warfare. When we look at the two figures it is easy to get caught up in the grandeur of their stories; especially with Guevara, the beleaguered asthmatic warrior fighting for a change that he believed to be right. His travels and the adventure that he made his life are very intriguing and make me want to be alive and be a part of this world; to leave an impact. Gandhi lived with simplicity greater than most men can ever hope to achieve, living in community, fasting and living with a vegetarian diet. He took the writings of Thoreau and applied them to the group level, leading the way to civil disobedience he was followed by Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. It seems to me that there are a few choices that everyone had to make in their life... One is whether or not to try to change what they see around them, and two, if they do decide to make a change do then take the Che or the Gandhi route...or is there something in the middle. I believe that violence is wrong because I know there is little difference between me and anyone else in the world. There is a better answer than violence almost every time. However for me I think that my Che/Gandhi dilemma is that while I see an issue with the world around me Che on my shoulder tells me to try to help in the most adventurous way that I can muster...and the Gandhi side tells me that there is a better way if I will be patient and unalterable. I guess I will continue to have the two people on my shoulders telling me what do.Yall be careful and ojala que estes con una sonrisa